Every single one of their albums has songs that I really like, and songs that I really hate so the waffling factor is pretty big. Not to mention that the only concert of theirs I went to was so unbearable I wanted to swallow a hand grenade. The whole experience consisted of watching Issac Brock dancing around like a drunken version of David Byrne whilst dozens of teenage girls around me shriek about how they want to hump him. I still voted for not crap, however, because I guess I'm just feeling not as much antipathy towards them as I used to.

the other night i was driving home flipping through the radio dial and came to a modern rock station. it was a 5 song "rock block" - red hot chili peppers, jimi hendrix, audioslave, some nu-metal song and then modest mouse. it made me laugh.

i like modest mouse. i like the fact that though they've changed it up a little from album to album, they've still got their own sound that they've remained true to. i like that they've been playing for years, and have released a bunch of albums, and they're now getting into the mainstream, and doing it without commercializing or anything. i like the way isaac plays guitar and sings, both parts sounding totally like HIM. and i think "float on" is a fine song, and a fine example of what's good about this band. i certainly don't like every song of theirs, but there are some truly great ones and a lot of fine ones, and i can forgive the dogs.

They Waffle like crazy for me, but I give 'em a Not Crap. I think they're just a really inconsistent band and Brock's meter gets kinda played out after the three zillionth retread. I've seen them play the most embarrassing live shows as well as some of the most awe inspiring. One time, we caught 'em at schuba's in the afternoon and they were so good, we caught the late show at the bottle, too. But as I've aged and move closer towards the maw of time, I think I like em only on a "song for song" basis. I even liked the one in the Nissan commercial. Oh yeah, rocking alliterative "ess" words when you have a very pronounced lisp is kool.

I used to live in Seattle for a while where a lot of people would say giving them a 'crap' is compliment for what they should be called. Now that I'm back on the east coast it's hard to explain but when I was living in Seattle, a lot of people really hated them, mostly because of the whole isaac rape deal from a few years ago. There would bands that wouldn't play shows with them and people that would encourage other bands not to share the bill with Modest Mouse.

I can understand the crap-assessments (and the new album is mostly crap) but definitely NOT CRAP for writing and performing hands-down some of the best music of the last ten years. There’s some total crap on every album, but this is true of most artists that have ever mattered from the Beatles through Neil Young to The Fall. Isaac Brock has written better lyrics than anyone I can think of under the age of 35. As toomanyhelicopters noted, Brock plays guitar and sings like on one else. You don’t like it and wish he didn’t? Fine.